For both parties, I tried to keep it simple—and conscious. For
my husband’s party, we splurged on dinner was at our favorite
organic restaurant, Akasha. As a gift, I gave him
a DIY Grain
Surfboard kit, made from sustainable hard wood. Guests came
back to our house, where we served organic gimlets in reusable
cups, recycled the bottles and composted the lime peels, with a
little help from my favorite sustainable party planner, Paige
Anderson of Bash Eco Events. For my
daughter’s sleepover, the theme was “Christmas in July,” so we
broke out the box of ornaments, borrowed a reusable tree and played
freeze dance to carols.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t totally consistent on the sustainability
front. I wanted to put a childhood photo of my husband on his cake,
so I ordered it from a traditional baker. My daughter craved egg
rolls, so we ended up ordering Chinese (luckily, we can recycle
Styrofoam in Los Angeles). We even decorated miniature stockings
with fabric paint—not the most eco-craft idea, and they loved
it.
But both my husband and my daughter had fun, and I survived
another July.
Besides the “no one puts Baby in a corner” moment, my favorite
memory of the whole week was between parties. The day before her
birthday party, I took my daughter to the beach, leaving my son and
the Barnacle (read: baby) at home with their daddy. While everyone
else sat under umbrellas in the sand, my daughter and I joined
hands and ran into gigantic waves that were breaking so hard we had
to dive under them so we wouldn’t get knocked over. I taught her to
body surf, showing her how to race the wave to the shore in order
to catch the lip before it crashed. Every so often the current
tumbled us, ripping our hands apart and flipping us around in the
“washing machine.” But my daughter popped up every time, her eyes
wide with fear but ready to laugh it off and jump back in with me.
It’s the same spirit she’s shown since the day she was born, since
she toddled into pools without warning, since she stretched up to
her full five-year-old height in order to ride the roller coasters
at Disneyland. She’s so fascinating to me, and so foreign, since
I’ve always been so afraid of consequences. My daughter is
fearless. And I am so blessed.
Happy birthday, my loves.
P.S. Here’s what my daughter is reading these days, 113 Things to Do by 13 written by Brittany Macleod, with a little help from her mom, Treehugger alum Terri MacLeod, which includes tips like “save water” and “go organic,” as well as “go off the high dive even if you don’t dive” and my personal favorite, “make dinner for your parents.” Preferably organic.
